Monday, October 3, 2011

Review: Tris and Izzie

A modern retelling of the German fairytale "Tristan and Isolde", Tris and Izzie is about a young witch named Izzie who is dating Mark King, the captain of the basketball team and thinks her life is going swimmingly well. Until -- she makes a love potion for her best friend Brangane and then ends up taking it herself accidentally, and falling in love with Tristan, the new guy at school.
-- Goodreads

My Thoughts:
I didn't really know anything about the Tristan and Isolde fairytale before reading Tris and Izzie; the story just sounded fun and possibly Shakespearean. I wanted something fun and light to end the summer with and this was a good choice for that.

Like I've said before I'm not a huge fan of romance and this is definitely a romance. I liked it, but I did get a bit annoyed by Izzie's relationships and her need to not be in love with Tris. That said I didn't really connect with Izzie at all, but I did like Brangane and Tris quite a bit and for some reason it really didn't matter all that much that I didn't like the main character, the other characters held up the story enough for me to enjoy it.

The mythology Harrison created was excellent and a different take on the paranormal genre: very different witches story that any I've read. Although, I must say the mythical creatures and special powers did get a little silly to me at a few points in the story -- it just seemed too little-kid-fairytale, but these moments were pretty rare.

If you're a romance and fariytale fan then you'll probably love this one, I liked but just got a bit bored with the romance.

The cover is so beautiful. Oh, I just noticed the name of the book is the shortened versions of Tristan and Isolde..:P which is a very good story, by the way - I'm not sure I'd want to mess with it by reading a retelling!

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About Me

I recently completede my Master's in Publishing from Portland State University where I studied all things publishing and YA. I've recently rediscovered YA lit and have become obsessed with everything that's going in YA right now. Hopefully one day (likely many, many years from now) I will open my own publishing company devoted to Young Adult and Children's books, but for now I will be reading and writing about YA and whatever else strikes my fancy.

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